LOL...believe it or not I know the feeling.

There are different kinds of legends. It's the online form, those that constantly hang out on boards sniping at others that are most irritating.

The True fishing legends I know don't hardly post anymore. I mean I love to fish and have put in a lot of time on the water but there are people who know a lot more then I. The Brackmans, Leevy, Mrass, Larry, Chugey, they all know more about T sharks then I do. I could name a whole other set for tuna.

They don't even post online for the most part because they don't want to deal with all the we nuts stalking them and trying to put them down.

Nothing as savage as some jealous idiot with a computer.

In hindsight I should of just let this thread go by and never said a damn thing.

Jim

PAT IS THE MAN!

case closed.


(lock it up Adi)

Indeed... I'm just glad he didn't say the world was flat, or the universe revolves around us.

Yep the TLD15 is the ultimate Big Game tool, can kill anything in the ocean and all those guys with Gold Reels and God forbid two speeds are just throwing good money away for nothing. :notworthy:

That old Archerism is so true :luxhello:

I was able to read between the lines and pull alot of useful info from this thread.i can see getting tired of defending your comments after putting in years of time hunting these threshers, but guys with alot less experience are reading and appreciate the insite.

I too read through the lines and gleaned some really good information. I'm pretty sure a lot of people got the same.

Just remember guys this is a kayak fishing forum not a skiff fishing forum and fighting a fish from a kayak is way different than the much higher weight of a skiff. You can land pretty much as big a fish as you want in a kayak with a TLD15 LD. Are there better and stronger reels that may give you a shorter fight, hell yes, will the TLD 15 do the job, I would say for anything you actually want to catch in your kayak, hell yes.
I say this no to brag in any fashion only to qualify my statement. I have caught dozens of Threshers from my kayak with my biggest T off my kayak weighed on a certified scale, so no made up weight, and it was 172.4 pounds. Landed on a TLD 15 LD with 20 pound test and a 100lb flouro leader. The fight lasted 2 1/2 hours and was caught over the LJ canyon. This fish, because I was in a kayak, never got more than half way into the spool of line. Same with my first Marlin from the kayak, which took much faster runs, which was estimated at 150-180. That one was on a Charter Special which I guess is closer in size to a TLD 10, this time 20lb test with no leader. Again this fish never got even close to halfway into the spool, it did though drag me 8 miles out. I was with my friend Howard when he hooked and fought a 300lb plus Blue Marlin on a Trindad 14 and the fight lasted 4 1/2 hours and covered close to 17 miles and again the fish never got more than 1/2 way into the spool. I only say these things again as a reminder that we are fighting fish from a moving platform so generally speaking you just don't need that big heavier gear that Jim is talking about. Not saying you wouldn't mind having it during those long fights and have the ability to drop into low gear and just grind.

On aside, threads like this are why this community has gone down hill and many of the guys that have been around for a long time no longer post. There is rarely the sharing of info, if you do share you get attacked, if you don't share you get attacked, or in the sharing you are attacking someone else, or the posts are just a.... look at me...... a I am better than the rest of you..... look at me... just condescending with no actual helpful information. It honestly really depresses me to think of how close this community used to be and to where it has now come.
The people that give others crap for sharing information are generally the same ones who were all over this site sucking up information when they got started. I just don't get it :hmmmm:

:iagree::grouphug:, "Now back to your regular scheduled program already in progress"

I could not agree more with you Jim Sammons.

Great stuff Jim. I agree with you. Most people only know one thing or one way to fish. The deal is Offshore inshore, boats kayaks etc.. all have their unique tackle demands, one size really doesn't fit all :D
.
I'd add something you may not have considered to that. Personally I'd say that the largest tackle issue you face with really large threshers is when they die on the line.

I had a good friend that got a 400+ fish a while back that was tail hooked and died. Initially as it sank he thought it was still alive and just taking drag, but eventually he realized it was dead and that they'd have to lift it's 400+ pounds back to the surface with his eighty pound gear. With him working the rod and another guy at the rail lifting hand over hand it took them several grueling hours to get it up to the boat. Then they had to tie it off, take it in and clean the thing.

He told me if he had to do it over again he would of stayed home.

I don't think there would be any way to get a fish like that back to the surface without heavy gear that could actually winch them up, and I don't see how you could utilize such gear effectively from a kayak. Perhaps towing a kayak she might of never sounded and died, who knows.

If a fish is hooked in the mouth, and stays up top I think you'd have a good chance even thirty pound, but if a huge one sounds and dies on lighter gear it's a waste of flesh because you just can't lift them back up.

My take is if I kill it I have to utilize it. so I now use the heavy gear from my skiff now precisely because it can lift a dead one back to the surface. I fish alone, I don't have a deckhand to hand line a dead fish for me. To me it's just part of the game. I need to have a reel that gears down low enough, with strong enough line to dead lift a huge fish. It's just a given.

I did not always see it that way. I fished Makos first and with them you can fish much lighter gear. I did not say it earlier but my largest T was caught on a TLD25 filled with straight forty mono, my standard Mako gear back in the day. I was actually fishing for Makos when I hooked it, and I managed to get it, but that fish was mouth hooked, and came back up to the top, so it was really only luck and great boat handling from my buddy, that allowed me to get her.

Now I know enough to leave that gear at home when the bigger T's are around. After fishing them enough and seeing the various things that can go wrong, and the number of them that fight themselves to death, I now feel fishing with that light of gear is irresponsible. I kill I keep it's the bottom line.

That's actually kinda the problem I have with the article linked to in the thread. Ron's not talking about fishing them in kayaks, he's talking about fishing them in boats, and unfortunately he's generalizing that gear used to fish small inshore Ts will actually work for offshore fish. Inshore you can utilize lighter tackle because they can't sound deep. It's just not the case for bigger fish offshore.

At any rate thanks for your well reasoned response and perspective. Great stuff as always. Hey and if you ever want to go for some real monster Ts maybe we can rig up a support boat and chase some down for you.

Jim

Well you will notice in my post I said.
"You can land pretty much as big a fish as you want in a kayak with a TLD15 LD"

I don't know that I "Want" a 400 lb Thresher from my kayak. :eek:

Ah who am I kidding, of course I do. Not bringing it on board though!!


Oh and forgot to mention.
PAT is the Man
A nicer more chill guy you will never meet! And I am not saying this because he is bigger than a house.

Personally, between all the bickering, I've managed to pick up a lot of useful information. I think it is a shame that to get the info you have to sift through everyone's ego. I just don't understand that aspect of it.

Thank you JimD and JimS for the info you guys posted, I am going to put it to use soon. Not on any 400lber's though.

Thank You
 

Well, as for my self, being fairly new to the whole concept of fishing from Tupperware, I do get a lot of information from this forum. I have learned basic concepts on how to best rig a yak for fishing big fish, & really big fish, how to get said fish to the yak, & what to do with it when you get it there... even how to make bait from a yak.
Their are readers here that don't, & may never fish SoCal, so specifics on how to catch YT, WSB, or big T's may not help us so much, but its still nice to learn different ways of doing things, (first hand accounts are always best).
This is the most active Kayak fishing forum I have found, & have seen people from all over the US on here, & even post from Australia & GB.
I grew up here in the Puget sound, and growing up, my experience was bottom fishing, even at that, the way some of you rig for Halibut is different than what I learned, & will have to try it next time I go to an area where I am allowed to target them, with a few hook changes to comply with local regs.
I saw an Orca once, less than 5 ft from to boat as my dad was sending some herring down for a Ling, & his line commenced to screaming, he just cut the line... I knew a guy who swore he snagged a sub, witch is totally possible, in that area, & I have seen rods break on a fast drift and a hard snag, sending part, if not the whole, broken, rod & reel to the bottom.
I don't have a lot of money these days & cant afford the best, or to loose what I have. I hate having gear broken & hate cutting line, so If I have to loose something, including a fish (or Marine mammal) I cant manage, I prefer to be able to break it off within 10ft of the hook.
All that said, You guys are the reason I have gotten into kayak fishing. you guys seem to have such a good time & seem to be a pretty close knit group of guys. that and Its a whole lot cheaper than all the cost associated with a boat, & a whole lot more fun than throwin, lures, or bait from the shore.

How will this reel hold up against a medium to larger sized thresher?
I have 350yrds of 65# Jerry brown and and 150yrds of 40# spectra backing.


Single piece alloy, 27lbs of drag, 4.3:1 carbon matrix drag system....

http://www.purefishing.com.au/assets...hamar/main.jpg

Remove the levelwind and it will be good to go..


Its not the quality of the gear that catches fish but the quality of the fisherman!

Just curious why people are so against the level wind? I haven't had an issue with it =/

I have battled a few threshers over the years. I even speared an 95 lb one once. I dont know Jim at all but my experiences with Threshers are in line with his. It would be foolish to attempt to land one of those monsters off a kayak. I have tried...

I was playing around online and came across Fred Archer's "Shark Troller's Bible" Online at Google.

http://books.google.com/books?id=Cb3...epage&q&f=true

Doesn't look like the whole book is there but there is something like a third of it, something like forty pages. Though you can't copy it, it can be read online.

For those who don't know Fred used to be considered one of the best known authors if not authorities on Big Game Shark fishing in So.Cal. He's written numerous books about it, and flat out his books changed the way people fished for Sharks off So. Cal.

Might be an interesting read for some.

Jim

where did the BOTD section go? oh wait sorry wrong website.... :rolleyes:
thanks to Jim and Jim for the insight.

btw, good luck finding these guys on the yak. i went out several times in "prime" locations at the "right time" and got nothing... might have needed to fish my baits more towards the bottom than the mid and upper water column though. but 280ft seems kinda deep for a mackerel. lol